


Come Home

by PoliticalBloodTea



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Gen, Peter's POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2015-11-09
Packaged: 2018-04-30 18:58:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5176067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoliticalBloodTea/pseuds/PoliticalBloodTea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rebuilding a family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Poetry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poetry/gifts).



> Jesus christ this is so late I'm sorry. But Marco family feels as requested!

Peter felt like a blind man who hadn’t even realized he had been unable to see for his entire life. He had lost the people closest to him to a war he hadn’t even realized was being waged. His wife hadn’t been his wife for the last year of their marriage before she disappeared, his son fought for his life and the life of his friends and the life of the entire planet for three years and Peter hadn’t even seen it change him. Marco was great at pretending everything was okay, at never letting anyone see what was going on underneath the surface, but Peter should have been the one person who could see it.

He knew he had been selfish after Eva died, practically abandoning Marco, consumed with his own grief. He thought he had been doing a better job of actually being a father, but the moment he found out about Yeerks and the Animorphs and what they had been doing he was taken back to the moment years ago when he had shaken off his depression and realized with horror that Marco had been parenting him instead of the other way around. Marco was a teenager, his son, a baby still, but he had seen war and horror and Peter knew _nothing_. When he found out Eva was alive and had been held prisoner for years he wondered how either of them could stand to look at him. He had missed everything important, everything they depended on him to see. He lived his life under the illusion that everything was okay in his world, when in fact everyone around him had been drowning and he couldn’t see it.

After his eyes were opened he felt like he couldn’t stop seeing everything. After the war was over and far too many people had been lost he watched Eva and Marco, he saw the way Marco would stick closer to her than Peter. Peter felt his own urge to gravitate towards her after she had returned to them, but he could tell that Marco wasn’t just seeking out the comfort of his mother, he was seeking out the only parent who knew what those three years had really been like. He saw the way they were both quieter and darker than they had been before. Marco had always looked more like Eva than Peter, and where they used to have bright eyes and smiles their eyes were now harder and their smiles sharper.

He couldn’t see the way he and Eva fit together anymore, wasn’t sure if they could go back to their marriage, but he did know that the three of them would stick together in some way. He couldn’t abandon Eva and Marco again, even if they had each other now. 

Three months after the war they found themselves living under the same roof, unable to bear being apart or away from Marco. 

Marco had been quiet during the meal, not even bothering with the fake cheerful persona he used to keep everyone at arm's’ length. Peter frowned as he watched Marco retreat to his bedroom. Eva smoothed the wrinkles in Peter’s forehead with her thumb. “Talk to him. He still needs you.”

Peter shook his head, “I’m not the one who understands what it was like for him. For you.”

Eva smiled sadly. “That’s a good thing. Marco and I… I don’t think he could stand to be around me for too long if you weren’t here.”

Peter frowned again. Marco barely spoke about the war to him. He had been doing interview after interview, making it seem like he was spilling every secret possible to the public, basking in the attention, but Peter knew that he kept things hidden deep in the shadows, sometimes he saw flashes of shame or guilt cross Marco’s face when he thought Peter wasn’t looking. He saw flashes of other things, too, rage, grief, triumph. But when everyone was looking he kept it caged away, locked under the persona of media-friendly war hero. Peter had thought it was best to stop looking for the key and let Eva be the one to step forward, but what she was saying didn’t fit.

“You’re his mother,” Peter said, “Of course he wants you around.”

Eva leaned back in her chair and one of the expressions he was still learning how to decipher flitted across her face. “Marco did things he’s not proud of, he made hard decisions. It’s his right to tell you about it if he wants to, and I don’t blame him for anything, but he blames himself. I know you think we have some sort of bond you can’t touch because of what we went through, but that’s not true.” She paused and inhaled shakily. “You know that he doesn’t see the others outside interviews and memorial dedications, right?” 

Peter nodded. He had asked Marco why he hadn’t seen Jake lately. Marco had grinned and said, “Well, you know, being president of Earth keeps him pretty busy these days,” and then changed the subject.

“They’re reminders of the war,” Eva said. “I’m a reminder of the war to him, and…” She paused again and Peter reached for her hand. Tears welled in her eyes but didn’t spill over, and she swallowed a few times before she spoke. “Sometimes he’s a reminder for me. God, I shouldn’t say that, he’s my _son_. But Edriss used the memory of him against me so often…” She stopped and didn’t continue again, her eyes grew distant in a way Peter was starting to get used to. He had the feeling she was searching every corner of her mind, making sure she was really, finally alone and free. She always came out of it looking satisfied so he tried to never interrupt.

He squeezed her hand and started to clear the dishes, waiting for her to speak again, and thinking over what she had already said. He was drying the last dish by the time she joined him in the kitchen.  
“I’m sorry that you couldn’t be there for Marco during the war, but I’m not sorry he protected you by keeping it away from it all. And maybe it’s selfish but I know we’re both glad to have someone who wasn’t part of it. That’s why we both need you, you let us forget, you make us feel normal for just a moment.” She kissed his cheek, cool and dry, like a friend, like the only thing he needed from her. “You haven’t lost him. Marco needs you, just push a little harder to make him let you in.” She walked away, leaving Peter feeling overwhelmed, not only with what she had said, but also for the first time he saw a little of the Eva that had existed before.

He would listen to her, he would pry gently at Marco’s shell until it broke and everything he was holding in spilled out, until he gathered Marco, vulnerable and shaking, into his arms like a child as he sobbed all his secrets and fears into Peter’s chest. He would tell Marco that he wasn’t a bad person, that he was a kid put through hell and forced to make hard decisions, that Peter didn’t blame him for anything and neither did Eva.

He would learn how he and Eva fit together again, he would sit up with her when she had nightmares, he would apologize for not realizing that she was being held prisoner before she disappeared. He would listen to her when he pushed too hard and she asked him to stop expecting her to want to punish him for not seeing it.

His family had been shattered once, and Eva and Marco were also broken in their own ways, and he would have to learn the people they were now. But at their cores they were still who they had always been, and he knew who he had to be for them.


End file.
